


byleth wakes up.

by malevon



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Temporary Character Death, but not in that order, for like three seconds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-10-01 18:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20368354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malevon/pseuds/malevon
Summary: byleth has woken up twice. once, in the middle of it all; twice, at the end of it all.





	byleth wakes up.

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF BE ROUTE!!! (if you side with edelgard)

She watches with wide eyes, the whites of them reflecting the roaring flames around her, as Rhea - can she even be called that anymore? - collapses, the thud of her massive body on the ground shaking Fhirdiad to its core.

She looks over to her student, her liege, her  _ friend _ , and the look in the girl's face is something that has never quite been there. Confusion, maybe? Worry, too, but worry has already carved its lines into the poor woman's face. But it's the look of finality that makes Byleth feel, in a strange way, at peace. As much as she can be, having just slain the corrupted form of a corrupted goddess.

It’s over. It’s over. They won.

She aches. Goddess, does she ache - surely, the rest of her charges must, as well. This is to be expected. Byleth looks back at Rhea, watches the growing pool of green blood, sludge, poison, seep from the mirrored slashes above her horns. It makes her feel queasy.

But she looks back to Edelgard, and the look on her face is  _ absolutely _ something she's never seen there before. At least, perhaps not directed at her. Maybe it has something to do with the way the world is lurching, her muscles giving up on her even though they have pushed her so far and for so long, her chest on fire. She never hits the ground - instead, she vaguely registers the feeling of warm metal against the curve of her spine, the feeling of a gloved hand on the back of her neck, the notion that perhaps Edelgard is saying something to her that she can't quite catch. What is she saying? Byleth's eyes close. She's never been good at reading lips anyways. Suddenly she cannot breathe. She keeps trying to cough, to tell Edelgard (El, she chides herself with what little energy she has left) that she’ll be okay, it’s fine, don’t worry, but her chest is on fire her chest is on fire her chest is

Gone.

She wants to  _ scream. _

“No,” she whispers, the silence in her ear when she tried to listen for a pulse ringing louder than the crackle of flames around them. 

“No, no, no.”

She cradles the body of the progenitor god in her arms. A presence so large, so demanding, a presence that held a larger place in her heart than the Immaculate One herself, reduced to the light body of Byleth Eisner in her grasp. 

Edelgard von Hresvelg has lost so much. She  _ refuses _ to lose any more to this damned war of her own design. 

“No, no,  _ no, no, NO!” _

She screams.

It cannot be helped.

It is ripped from her chest like her innocence was, years ago, that scream. It tears through her lungs and her bones and echoes off of the scales of the dragon before her. It is so loud, and yet it does not rouse the woman in her arms.

She lowers her forehead to Byleth’s chest, her hand in her hair. For so  _ long  _ she had had to restrain herself. To put on this character of a cold and detached leader focused on her goals and her goals alone - and she  _ was  _ \- but nothing had alighted her passion more than the first day she saw Byleth’s face in five years. She had felt truly  _ happy.  _ She had retired to her quarters that night and  _ cried. _

How ironic it is, then, that months later, she would be the one to make the empress of Fódlan cry again?

She whispers apologies into Byleth’s breastplate. Apologies for pushing her too far, for not being vulnerable enough with her, for not being able to repay her debt, for not knowing what to do now. She’s so sorry. She weeps. She does not remember the last time sobs have been wrenched from her soul like this.  _ It cannot end this way. _

Edelgard is desperate. She has never been desperate.

She has always been the one to plan things out tactfully, but as she lays Byleth reverently on the ground and clasps her hands together and presses down on her chest rhythmically and tries and tries and  _ tries - _

A breath.

Weak, but present.

Edelgard continues, her sobs melting slowly into raucous laughter as Byleth, in tempo with Edelgard’s hands, slowly comes back to her. 

Her eyes open, and dear goddess.

Edelgard has never been happier in her entire life. She eagerly takes Byleth into her arms again.

She has never seen such beauty in a shade of purple before.

Years ago, when Byleth merged with the progenitor goddess, Edelgard was sure that she would be tossed aside once her motives were made clear. It was the dark hair, the lavender eyes that she fell for. The green hair, the green eyes - she still fell for them, but she was also  _ terrified  _ of them.

Perhaps she should be terrified now, surrounded by flames, alone, but with her revived companion now breathing and coming to before her eyes, it’s all Edelgard can do not to start jumping up and down.

And Byleth - Byleth - dear goddess, she starts  _ laughing _ .  _ Laughing  _ along with her, and the sound is like nothing Edelgard has heard before.

“ _ What is this _ ?” she asks frantically between giggles, but there is a strange fear in her voice.

“It’s  _ laughter,  _ my teacher. And it suits you.” 

Edelgard is used to the urge to kiss Byleth. What she is not used to is following through on the urges. It doesn’t matter.

She kisses her, their embrace interrupted by fits of giggles from both women, and Edelgard has to force herself to push away to ask about Byleth’s wellbeing, considering.

“I feel  _ terrible, _ ” she says, but the bright smile that makes Edelgard feel like perhaps she’s in the presence of a true holy being stays. “What is this? What happened to me, El?”

Edelgard nearly breaks at the nickname.

“A heart’s a heavy burden,” she says solemnly, but the smile never leaves her face, either.

She scoops Byleth up, the cackling she gives in response overwhelming the crackling of the fires around them. On the way back to reunite with the rest of the Black Eagles, Edelgard peppers Byleth with kisses - kisses that she has waited far too long to deliver.

They can never, ever, ever see her as happy as she is now, for two reasons: one, they would never let her live it down, and her reputation as the stoic and practical leader would be destroyed, and two, she will never be this happy again.

(She tells herself this as she carries the former vessel of the progenitor goddess through the wreckage wrought by Seiros. However, a month later, there is a wedding. And she finds out that, yes, it  _ was _ indeed possible for her to be that happy again. And again. And again. And again - as many days as she woke up next to her wife.)

**Author's Note:**

> i finished the BE/Edel route this evening and i am still reeling from the ending cutscene. literally what is more romantic than your wife's heart starting to beat again?


End file.
